Podium Minerals has officially added rhodium and iridium to its mineral resource estimate at the company’s Parks Reef project in WA — creating what it says is Australia’s first defined 5E PGM resource.
5E PGM represents a combination of platinum, palladium, gold, rhodium and iridium.
Podium says its updated inferred resource at the project is now 52.2 million tonnes at 1.64 grams per tonne for three million ounces of 5E PGM. According to the company, the addition of iridium and rhodium adds 44 per cent to the average weighted price of the previous 3E PGM.
The average weighted price of the resource has now been calculated as $2827 per ounce, up from $1965 per ounce, without including the value of base metals.
The element make-up of the resource breaks down to 0.81 g/t platinum, 0.66 g/t palladium, 0.08 g/t gold, 0.06 g/t rhodium and 0.03 g/t iridium.
Management says the project’s resource has been calculated using a 1 g/t 5E PGE cut-off grade, based on the assumption that it will be mined using open pit methods.
The site also contains base metals including 0.07 per cent copper, 0.09 per cent nickel and 0.018 per cent cobalt.
Podium says the potential to recover cobalt has enabled the company to add the important electric vehicle metal to its suite of green-industry metals already situated within the PGM reef.
Podium Minerals Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Sam Rodda said: “Parks Reef suite of metals will continue to feed existing decarbonisation technologies such as autocatalysts and support the development of green hydrogen energy with PGMs and battery EV production which is driving demand of metals nickel, cobalt, and copper.”
The 5E PGM Parks Reef project is a 15km-long contact zone mineralisation between mafic and ultramafic rock units near Meekatharra. Ore commences near surface and has been proven to 500m below ground and remains open in all directions.
In February Podium updated its previous PGM estimates by 28 per cent to 2.8 million ounces grading 1.56 grams per tonne PGM. The copper estimates also experienced a healthy boost rising by 31 per cent to 27.8m tonnes at 0.24 per cent copper for 104,000 tonnes of contained copper.
Podium says value-adding to the Parks Reef project remains at the forefront of its plans, with the next resource update expected in the upcoming December quarter targeting the addition of significant PGE ounces based on an exploration target of 2.7 to 3.8 million ounces through the results of its stage 10 drilling campaign.
The latest resource update shows the value the company is placing on becoming Australia’s next 5E PGM producer, with preliminary metallurgical work being considered to maximise ore recoveries.
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